It’s not just Wind Turbines that kill wildlife, from the Wall Street Journal:
“A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds.”
“The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land southwest of Las Vegas, includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. Nearly 350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight onto boilers atop the towers, creating steam that drives power generators.”
“The owners of the project— NRG Energy Inc., NRG, Google Inc. GOOG and BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that developed the “tower power” solar technology—call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”
“Ivanpah is among the biggest in a spate of power-plant-sized solar projects that have begun operating in the past two years, spurred in part by a hefty investment tax credit that expires at the end of 2016. Most of them are in California, where state law requires utilities to use renewable sources for a third of the electricity they sell by 2020.”
“Utility-scale solar plants have come under fire for their costs–Ivanpah costs about four times as much as a conventional natural gas-fired plant but will produce far less electricity—and also for the amount of land they require.
That makes for expensive power. Experts have estimated that electricity from giant solar projects will cost at least twice as much as electricity from conventional sources. But neither the utilities that have contracted to buy the power nor state regulators have disclosed what the price will be, only that it will be passed on to electricity customers.”
“The BrightSource system appears to be scorching birds that fly through the intense heat surrounding the towers, which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The company, which is based in Oakland, Calif., reported finding dozens of dead birds at the Ivanpah plant over the past several months, while workers were testing the plant before it started operating in December. Some of the dead birds appeared to have singed or burned feathers, according to federal biologists and documents filed with the state Energy Commission.”
“Regulators said they anticipated that some birds would be killed once the Ivanpah plant started operating, but that they didn’t expect so many to die during the plant’s construction and testing. The dead birds included a peregrine falcon, a grebe, two hawks, four nighthawks and a variety of warblers and sparrows. State and federal regulators are overseeing a two-year study of the facility’s effects on birds.”
“The agency also is investigating the deaths of birds, possibly from colliding with structures, found at two other, unrelated solar farms. One of those projects relies on solar panels and the other one uses mirrored troughs. Biologists think some birds may have mistaken the vast shimmering solar arrays at all three installations for a lake and become trapped on the ground after landing.”
K Smith says:
“A single house cat can kill 300-500 birds per year.” Estimated by whom, may I ask?
Anyway, what’s your point?
The point here is that adding more bird slicers/dicers is a bad idea.
Besides, the average house cat probably doesn’t kill even one bird a year, unless it’s Tweety. They’re house cats, see?
Now, if you want to help with the feral cat problem, every local Humane Society can use your assistance. [I’ve done this myself.] Cats are captured, neutered or spayed, then returned to their territory with a clipped ear to show they’ve been fixed & can’t reproduce. [They also get a flea treatment, rabies shots and other vetrenarian help.]
Other feral cats don’t move in to a cat’s territory, otherwise they could be exterminated. So it’s more effective to fix and return them. They keep other ferals out.
You can make a red-herring argument about cats, or you can debate the pro’s and con’s of windmills. But I suppose it’s easier to make the cat fallacy argument.
The point is we need to make decisions about energy and the environment based on all the facts and based on the relative impact of those choices. Fossil fuels kill birds, animals and people. While I’m concerned about killing birds as much as the next guy, I’m not out there protesting hunting. If you care about birds so much, you should focus on the bigger avian issues – buildings, feral cats, cars, transmission lines – not an innovative plant that could be responsible for the amount of birds killed by one stray cat or one building in a year. The statistics on the top 10 risks to birds can be found in Google, and solar and wind turbines don’t even add up to one tenth of one percent. There may be other reasons not to do solar and wind, but risks to birds is truly a red herring.
So, just got here and read a bit up top.
Question for moderators and or Anthony and/or other weather experts with access and knowledge of this area’s weather history.
Any hail storms? How severe, how often?
Anyone have an idea of the cost of “Hail Insurance” for this project?
Sorry if this has been disscussed prior.
The mirrors are constructed of tempered glass and to a thickness and durability to withstand hail, and in fact, undergo hail testing. Lenders and investors wouldn’t take that risk.
Too, any high wind problems in the area?
Heliostats/mirrors also designed for high wind, but at a certain level they go into the “stow” position, which is flat for low wind resistance. Expect the design will handle 99% of the wind speeds anticipated in the area, just the crazy wind speeds forces them to go into stow. Projects typically monitor wind and solar resources on site for a couple of years prior to construction and correlate that with 20 years of satellite data or data from nearby airports.
So little bait, such a quick strike.
Careful of apaches who know of ambushes.
I read a lot.
Mr. K Smith of the reading a lot world.
As this operation was built next to existing transmission lines that seem to power Las Vegas and or L.A. what do you think the transmission/distribution line loss is with the existing Power Factor?
As the sun has this thing about “coming up” and “going down” what are the constraints of the time when the sun is not so, shall we say “hot” aka low angle of support. Out on the reservation we do not get much radiant heat until around 10:00 and often it cools down around 6:00 also.
Thus it is not a 12 hour max deal yes? Sort of like a normal work day, say 8 hours or so.
What do you thinki?
The line loss would seem to be somewhere around 6% to 10%.
The low angle time seems to be a known also. Looks to be only 7 hours out a possible 12 total.
May be they need to go back and put all the mirrors on towers of say 300′ high to better the results because of the fact the earth is round and all that.
Let’s see catching up. Transmission line losses are likely much smaller than identified here. I’d be surprised if they were much more than 1%. Water use – the Ivanpah project is fully dry cooled (no evaporative losses), so water use is 15% of a conventional power plant with wet cooling (virtually all fossil fuel plants are wet cooled). A little water for mirror cleaning, but not significnat compared to wet cooling in conventional power plants. BrightSource had been developing the project since 2006 or 2007 and only started construction in 2010, so they certainly had a couple of years or more of solar and wind data – investors require it. Hail risk is zero – they will test and specs require it. Ivanpah will likely run 8-9 hours a day when the sun shines as they don’t have energy storage. SolarReserve’s project in Tonopah, Nevada has 10 hours of energy storage so can meet the utility’s peak energy requirements well into the evening hours – 10-11-12 midnight.
Funny how the progressive/eco-nasty partnership works.
Steal from and tax the poor to enrich the well connected.
Throw out rule of law.
One law for me. Nine for thee.
Yet any who oppose this mendacity, are supposed to act only within the law?
At what point does governments contempt for the law and wilful breach of contract with the lawful citizen, put them outside the law?
K Smith says:
February 14, 2014 at 6:38 pm
K Smith says:
February 14, 2014 at 6:42 pm
No reason t assume at all that they had time for “years of tests” – since funding and construction followed so closely on the federal budgets and construction start limits since Obama and Reid took their dictatorship only in very early 2009, and needed a while to get funding into the contractor’s hands.
Lots of assumptions there, and – IF this were a “real” design built by “real investors” (instead of Solyndra-clone-democrat-buddies-of-Reid-and-Obama) who were investing for a “real” power project, you might be right.
This isn’t.
Their “water use” alone – a “pump from the remaining underground reservoir until everybody runs out of water” proves it. The funding, the politics, the statements they are makning now – all prove it. “Make money fro political connections” NOW (during construction, for the union voters they are paying to get union re-election support) , then …. quit. Walk away. Like Solyndra, and any other of 300 similar nationwide construction projects for solar, insulation, wind and solar PV – with no repair and operations and maintenance budgets ever intended.
What? You think California’s Democrat Senator Feinstein husband won that bid for the high-speed train inside California using federal and state money from nowhere to nowhere on “competence” and “economy” ?
few records I found about hailstones in Las Vegas, but this was on UTube:
” Uploaded on Nov 3, 2011
Here is another video of the September Hailstorm in my neighborhood, it was over almost as fast as it started and the hail was all melted 10 minutes later (but for a minute it looked like a winter wonderland with all the hail and when the water went down the drains)
” .
Few hailstorms in Las Vegas is good. Reno had quail-sized hailstones, but rarely in the last 100 years. Also good.
Are the tiled mirrors built against hail? Let us see the actual tests. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe the spec’s – IF they were written at all – were followed.
More recent Las Vegas hailstorms reports below:
Probably the lowest loss component of the system; overall losses from transmission to distribution (T&D) could approach 10%, but not transmission alone …
From page 3 of this
document:
.
Oh. Water use:
This plant requires a modest amount of water every hour to make up for cooling (evaporation) losses and leaks in the steam side of their power plant. Not as much as some conventional steam plants, but about 5-8% is lost every day, and every gallon lost needs to be replaced from Las Vegas’ vunerable underground water. Which otherwise would be available for drinkign and people and crops and livestock.
Hoover Dam is going empty to send water to Los Angelos and the Imperial Valley and Palm Springs. When the first surveys were done on the Colorado RIver flows in 1915-1918, and 1920-1930 to determine of Hoover Dam could fill up…. The Colorado Drainage Basin was in all-time high water and snow high. It has never been that high since.
And is still going down.
We do not need to kill innocent birds to have energy folks, this sickens me
You’ve missed the rest of the conversation Stephanie. The biggest risks to birds, by orders of magnitude, is feral cats, building, transmission lines, cars & trucks. More than 500 million birds per year fall to these risks. What’s your view on this? Tear down the buildings? Close the roads? Kill all the stray cats? (they actually tried to pass legalize the hunting of stray cats in Wisconsin to help the bird problem, and it failed).
PRODUCING SOLAR ENERGY AT NIGHT
As mentioned in a previous post, this heliostat at Tonopah uses molten salt to store the heat so that energy can be produced round the clock. I like the low-tech idea of using mirrors, and also the low tech solution of molten salt as an energy store.
It depends whether the economics works out – the EROEI [Energy returned on energy invested]. And of course it is only really suitable for a hot dry climate. Even so it sounds like an interesting idea. Could be ideal for Africa IF the economics are okay.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article44429.html
Pipe Rupture, Fires Vex Ivanpah Solar Crews
http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/solar/concentrating-solar/pipeline-rupture-fires-vex-ivanpah-solar-crews.html
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert suffered a setback in mid-May when a rupture was found in a tube intended to heat steam for use generating power at Unit 2. Repairs are still continuing, according to a state agency that monitors the energy plant. That rupture followed close on the heels of three “ignition incidents” at the plant’s Units 1 and 2.
K Smith says:
February 14, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Really, “dozens” of birds over the last few months? Do you realize that feral cats alone are estimated to kill more than 100 Million birds per year in the US? A single house cat can kill 300-500 birds per year. The biggest risks for bird are cats, buildings, and cars – upwards to a billion birds per year. Let’s keep this in perspective, especially when fossil fuels kill wildlife as well (including people) – emissions, chemical waste, gas explosions.
K. Smith and sources don’t seem to differentiate between almost nuisance song birds [e.g. sparrows] and perhaps a young inexperienced Blue Jay which are targets for feral or even pet cats — and Falcons, Eagles, Hawks — which no cat with even a half-brain would think of taking on.
The solar mirror fryers and wind dice-a-matics are agnostic — they don’t care whether the targets are migrating song bids or hunting birds of prey — no bird has evolved any defenses of any use against the Green Technologies. Even bats who could in principle use their sonar to evade the wind turbines’ bird-a-matic blades have nothing to help them with the solar version of the Foreman Grill
K Smith says:
February 14, 2014 at 6:19 pm
The point is we need to make decisions about energy and the environment based on all the facts and based on the relative impact of those choices. Fossil fuels kill birds, animals and people. While I’m concerned about killing birds as much as the next guy, I’m not out there protesting hunting. If you care about birds so much, you should focus on the bigger avian issues – buildings, feral cats, cars, transmission lines – not an innovative plant that could be responsible for the amount of birds killed by one stray cat or one building in a year.
The typical double standard at work K Smith. Then why not judge these initiatives by the same standards set for fossil fuels?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2010/11/01/wind-powers-double-standard/
How much is a birds life worth?
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2009/08/21/how-much-is-a-birds-life-worth-part-1/
Why is it different depending on your group-think wishes?
Wow. You are fending Exxon’s environmental activities against wind and solar? That’s pretty misplaced. Do a search on all the environmental damage done at Exxon facilities – spills, pollution, fatalities to wildlife and humans. How about the Exxon Valdez? The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles of coastline and 11,000 square miles of ocean. That one accident dwarfs the entire worldwide solar and wind industry (forever…). And the lobbing activities and donation to politicians in the oil industries are on the order of 1000 times greater than that in renewables. Go to Opensecrets and check out the public information on donations.
So…a plant that (during peak daylight) takes up the entire area of – for example – the City of Perth local govt area. And produces enough power 20% of the time for 50,000 people (homes are about 1/3 of total power; the rest being the transport and business they rely on). Yep – sounds great.
But wait – maybe this is just a stage. You know, “investing in green energy development” – after all, “technology is making green energy cheaper and more competitive.” Perhaps the next generation of solar collectors will be 1/10 of the size and generate 5x the power, by…um…focusing 2000% of the energy hitting a given area. Or not. Solar CANNOT get any better than this. Mirrors are basically 100% reflective already. And they need constant cleaning to stay that way.
About $2bn flushed down the toilet.
Iberdrola: Suddenly sour on solar thermal
http://social.csptoday.com/technology/iberdrola-suddenly-sour-solar-thermal
Sánchez Galán, head of Iberdrola, the world’s largest renewable energy operator and a member of the council of Spain’s solar thermal association Protermosolar, had laid into the CSP sector during the call. “The 2,500 MW of solar thermal plants already preregistered could result in an additional cost of €2 billion,” he claimed after trumpeting a 3.5% rise in company profits, to EUR€2.14 billion.
“The massive deployment of these plants at the moment has no justification. We must immediately stop the development of economically and environmentally inefficient energies. Someone has to pay for the green solar feast; we can’t carry on doing things for the few.”
I find it interesting the plant foot print is 13 million sq m and can produce 400 MW of electricity. That comes out to about 30 w/sqm of solar energy to electricity far short of the 1kw/sqm the sun provides. This would seem to be less efficient than photo-voltaic systems. I would have expected a much more efficient system. And at a price tag of $2.2 billion, way too expensive and probably will only run until the government subsidies die out.
K Smith:
At February 15, 2014 at 8:42 am you say
Yes. Of course.
Only a fool would think the immense benefits of Exon’s activities fail to outweigh the trivial disadvantageous effects of their activities.
Also, only a fool would think the trivial benefits of wind and solar outweigh their immense disadvantageous effects.
And you follow that with your post at February 15, 2014 at 8:46 am which further demonstrates your inability to balance costs and benefits. The benefits of housing and power supplies are more than worth the cost in bird deaths they cause. But there are no benefits of wind and solar to be assessed against the cost in bird deaths they cause.
It would be helpful if you were to try to think before making your posts.
Richard
A wise friend told me that once someone resorts to insults, he has clearly reached the limit of his mental capacity. Looks like you are there and time for me to on with my small part in changing the world. One last note. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world has embarked on a 120 Billion (that’s a ‘B’) dollar solar program. They recognize where oil is going and they want to sell rather than consume. We should take note. Exxon sells to the highest bidder, whether its the US, the Europeans, or the Chinese. Energy independence can’t be achieved at world oil prices. The world is changing and we need to change as well – new energy sources, new solutions for conserving water. Not all of the new ideas will work, but that hasn’t stopped Americans from trying, We either change or get left behind. You are on the wrong side of history my friend, but I forgot, you’ve reached your limit.
K Smith says: February 15, 2014 at 8:46 am
The biggest risks to birds, by orders of magnitude, is feral cats, building, transmission lines, cars & trucks. More than 500 million birds per year fall to these risks. What’s your view on this? Tear down the buildings? Close the roads? Kill all the stray cats? (they actually tried to pass legalize the hunting of stray cats in Wisconsin to help the bird problem, and it failed).
No, I think we just start feeding bird of prey and bats into the smokestacks of coal and natural gas fired power plants so that greens can feel less like hypocrites…
Who are you kidding, that’s been happening for decades and decades. I built a bunch of them for the first 20 years of my career.
K Smith:
Your post at February 15, 2014 at 10:29 am says in total
OK. I’ll bite.
What has “been happening for decades and decades”, and what do you claim to have “built”?
Richard
K Smith:
At February 15, 2014 at 10:34 am I asked you to clarify a post you had made at February 15, 2014 at 10:29 am.
Subsequently, at February 15, 2014 at 10:38 am, you posted an irrelevant diatribe aimed at some friend of yours whom you claim has insulted you. Although I have some sympathy for you having fallen out with a friend, your distress seems to have caused you to overlook my request for clarification.
Please be so kind as to provide the clarification I requested.
Richard
K Smith says:
February 15, 2014 at 8:42 am
Wow. You are fending Exxon’s environmental activities against wind and solar?
If one does not look to all sides, one takes wrong decisions:
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/cheap-energy-or-green-energy-you-cannot-have-both.aspx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
K Smith says:
February 15, 2014 at 10:38 am
A wise friend told me that once someone resorts to insults, he has clearly reached the limit of his mental capacity. Looks like you are there and time for me to on with my small part in changing the world. One last note. Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the world has embarked on a 120 Billion (that’s a ‘B’) dollar solar program. They recognize where oil is going and they want to sell rather than consume. We should take note.
Where are the insults? Arguments are not insults K Smith, but arguments. Wind and solar do not get a free pass just because they are wind and solar. It has to make sense, which does not seem to be the case. There are many arguments against.
Where are the pro arguments?
If you have arguments post them. I think most of the people here are very interested in new energy sources and would be great to get new ideas, but not propaganda.
Frankly speaking I do not look forward at Saudi Arabia as an innovative country, but if you have an information about the 120 billion solar project would like to learn more.
Saudi’s oil will end sometime, the population is increasing fast, so they will have some challenges to overcome.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/31/a-look-at-oil-production/
For energy I’d rather think China and India are on the right path with Thorium, but lets see.
For oil there is still some in many parts for instance here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/24/up-to-233-billion-barrels-of-oil-discovered-in-southern-australia/
and other…keystone?
Water! Steam engines need a lot of water, no matter what you burn, coal or mirrored sunlight. Where in the desert they get all that water? Even if they condense and recuperate steam (which is not very efficient in hot and dry conditions), they constantly lose at least part of it, and need additional water. You need water to periodically clean all those 350,000 mirrors. You need to cool somehow not only your steam but all the mechanisms moving the mirrors, and the electronics controlling those mechanisms, in the middle of fiery desert, under the air blanket heated to thousand degrees by your solar plant. I’ve heard California is in serious drought.